The economy and standards of living
Quoted in Edexcel GCSE History B Schools History Project: Life in Germany by Steve Waugh, Pearson Education 2009
p83
'The RAD removed thousands from the national unemployment figures. However, it was not popular. The workers were paid very low wages, and had to put up with uncomfortable tented camps, long hours of work and boring jobs.'
'The official government figures did not include a number of groups who lost their jobs or those in labour service without proper jobs. These people became the invisible unemployed': jews, women, unmarried men under 25 (National Labour Service), opponents of the Nazis (concentration camps)
p.85
'From 1936 to 1939 wages actually increased, but this was due to a longer working day rather than an increase in hourly wage rates. Average working hours in industry actually increased from 42.9 hrs per week in 1933 to 47 hrs per week six years later. In addition, the cost of living increased during the 1930s, which meant that real wages (what workers could buy) actually fell. All basic groceries cost more in 1939 than in 1933. There were also food shortages, because the government reduced agricultural production in order to keep up prices.' A Social History of the Third Reich, by Richard Grunberger, Orion Books Ltd, 2005
pp.67-68
"Out of the social disorientation of the Depression... arose a craving for a return to the womb of community; this collective infantile regression would obliterate all conflicts - between employers and employees, town and countryside, producers and consumers, industry and craft - requiring continuous and infinitely complex regulations. The Nazis exploited this craving for 'folk community' and evolved their own synthesis of quasi-socialist promise and quasi-capitalist fulfilment.'
But what the Ns did most cleverly was recognise that the petty bourgeouis masses saw socialism as levelling down to the workers: not what they wanted at all - they were looking for ways to step up their standard of living. They attacked the symbols of class difference - lots of propaganda about the supremacy of work and the workers, mutual aid projects, encouragement of promotion on merit rather than social status - but didn't actually change the social structure itself.
p.75
"[W]orkers approved of the idea of folk community when they saw such symbols of lower-middle-class status as wireless sets and even motor cars gradually coming within their reach."
"[T]he same simple blue uniform had to be worn by everyone in the German Labour Front; as a result, employers and employees could not be told apart on public occasions."
Quoted in Edexcel GCSE History B Schools History Project: Life in Germany by Steve Waugh, Pearson Education 2009
p83
'The RAD removed thousands from the national unemployment figures. However, it was not popular. The workers were paid very low wages, and had to put up with uncomfortable tented camps, long hours of work and boring jobs.'
'The official government figures did not include a number of groups who lost their jobs or those in labour service without proper jobs. These people became the invisible unemployed': jews, women, unmarried men under 25 (National Labour Service), opponents of the Nazis (concentration camps)
p.85
'From 1936 to 1939 wages actually increased, but this was due to a longer working day rather than an increase in hourly wage rates. Average working hours in industry actually increased from 42.9 hrs per week in 1933 to 47 hrs per week six years later. In addition, the cost of living increased during the 1930s, which meant that real wages (what workers could buy) actually fell. All basic groceries cost more in 1939 than in 1933. There were also food shortages, because the government reduced agricultural production in order to keep up prices.'
A Social History of the Third Reich, by Richard Grunberger, Orion Books Ltd, 2005
pp.67-68
"Out of the social disorientation of the Depression... arose a craving for a return to the womb of community; this collective infantile regression would obliterate all conflicts - between employers and employees, town and countryside, producers and consumers, industry and craft - requiring continuous and infinitely complex regulations. The Nazis exploited this craving for 'folk community' and evolved their own synthesis of quasi-socialist promise and quasi-capitalist fulfilment.'
But what the Ns did most cleverly was recognise that the petty bourgeouis masses saw socialism as levelling down to the workers: not what they wanted at all - they were looking for ways to step up their standard of living. They attacked the symbols of class difference - lots of propaganda about the supremacy of work and the workers, mutual aid projects, encouragement of promotion on merit rather than social status - but didn't actually change the social structure itself.
p.75
"[W]orkers approved of the idea of folk community when they saw such symbols of lower-middle-class status as wireless sets and even motor cars gradually coming within their reach."
"[T]he same simple blue uniform had to be worn by everyone in the German Labour Front; as a result, employers and employees could not be told apart on public occasions."